You can use it as an excuse to whine and gripe and be perpetually negative...

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Which, to me, always seems counter to the positive messages sent to us by Star Trek.

In a different online place, I see people griping about Peter Jackson's late decision to expand "The Hobbit" into three films now, instead of two. The whining and griping is taking some bizarre turns. Not only are some concerned there won't be enough material for three films, others are actually complaining that there will be only a six-month break between the last two premieres, thus robbing them of their traditional Christmas treat. When they haven't even had the first one yet.

Getting this back onto topic, we see lots more griping with IDW's ST stuff. Five-parters are too long, two-parters should be three, single issues are "filler", tell us more about Keenser/who wants to waste time learning about Keenser.

Poor ol' B. Cumberbatch got fans cranky for complaining that he was tired of keeping secrets from them. And then - he failed to be explicit enough in his quoted whining to give any clues as to what secret role he was playing.

Except if it concerns roles for female characters. (Perhaps Bob Orci deliberately encourages IDW to use female regulars sparingly, because so did TOS? And the movie?)

And I really don't see any way to rationalise or improve upon Kirk stumbling across Spock in a cave.

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I do. Because we've seen before that, in its attempts to self-correct timelines that have been altered, the universe does seem to draw certain people together. I accepted this seeming coincidence as part of that repair. Ditto Scotty turning up, right on queue. (When this happens to me in real life, that "six degrees of separation" stuff, encountering certain people in various situations over and over, at different times in my life, it can be quite chilling. Even on Facebook, it's incredible who can turn out to be a "friend of a friend". I once encountered two people I know very well, from totally different times/places in my life, sitting together in a random park eating lunch; they'd known each other for many years.)

Even so, coming back to the comics, aside from some of the silliness that was already present in the original episodes, they are keeping the characters on a relatively even keel so far.

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Yep. By design, since IDW is still treading water, letting the films unfold first.

Lol - that's why I don't view the griping negatively. Turn that negative into a positive! I think it's hilarious the way people just can't let go of their own personal opinions, as if the writers had only picked their idea instead nobody would be griping at all - lol. Deep down I'd even love to think that it's true of my own opinions but of course that's nonsense.

I fell into a pit of despair when I saw how terrible the science was in Prometheus. I won't say it ruined the film for me but I will say that it stopped the movie getting anywhere near the same high esteem in which I hold Alien or Aliens. For every fan who'd agree with me there would be another three who'd have preferred more pew pew pew and explosions and less credible science.

Having said that, there are some things that are definitely right and definitely wrong. HAN SHOT FIRST!

The sad thing about the female issue is that it would take very little to stop me moaning and yet they continually fail to reach my relatively low standards. :P (in fairness to the comic, they are taking plodding steps in the right direction and if the redshirts issue has roughly equal male, female (and maybe even alien) security guards, I will give them an enthusiastic pass.

And there you go with the cave thing. I thought nobody would EVER find that contrived plot device to acceptable. I suppose what I don't understand is why the universe would care. This timeline is exactly how it is supposed to be. Many Worlds theory includes every possible timeline and every possible timeline includes timelines impacted by time travellers. I will concede that it's impossible to defend Trek one way or another on this issue.

Lol - that's why I don't view the griping negatively. Turn that negative into a positive!

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Sure, but it can be very destructive. Fans wonder aloud why people think that avid fans are embarrassing, and the fans manage to reinforce the stereotypes while they are in loud denial.

as if the writers had only picked their idea instead nobody would be griping at all - lol.

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Agreed. I don't know any work of fiction that is acclaimed by 100% of the audience.

I fell into a pit of despair when I saw how terrible the science was in Prometheus. I won't say it ruined the film for me but I will say that it stopped the movie getting anywhere near the same high esteem in which I hold Alien or Aliens.

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As someone who was too scared to see "Alien" on the big screen, but later was able to enjoy "Aliens", and who saw the other sequels out of a sense of completionist duty, I actually enjoyed my time in the cinema watching "Prometheus".

Was there a problem with the science?

Having said that, there are some things that are definitely right and definitely wrong. HAN SHOT FIRST!

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In which alternate timeline?

This timeline is exactly how it is supposed to be. Many Worlds theory includes every possbile timeline and every possible timeline includes timelines impacted by time travellers.

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Ah, but it seems that, in all/most of the parallel timelines, Kirk and Spock are destined to work alongside each other, and Kirk is destined to captain the USS Enterprise. And Spock Prime seems to know this.

Bleuch - I hated the way a team of scientists in Prometheus acted like they'd never heard of scientific method. I don't mind blue collar grunts doing scientifically dumb stuff (although Nero pushed the boundaries somewhat) but I've only got an O'level in physics from 1987 and the stupidity of the characters was really obvious even to me.

There were also many smarter ways to get Kirk and Spock working together.

And there you go with the cave thing. I thought nobody would EVER find that contrived plot device to acceptable. I suppose what I don't understand is why the universe would care. This timeline is exactly how it is supposed to be. Many Worlds theory includes every possible timeline and every possible timeline includes timelines impacted by time travellers.

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The way Roberto Orci rationalized it in interviews was in terms of probability. The idea is that certain outcomes are more probable than others, and that the majority of timelines will tend toward the more probable outcomes just as a matter of statistics -- which can give the appearance that the cosmos is somehow "pushing" things in that direction. So the screenwriters' thinking is that if something happens to push a timeline away from that high-probability track, there will be a tendency to correct back toward the high-probability track. It's a little bit fudged for story reasons, but it's not entirely devoid of merit as an idea.

The way I implicitly rationalized it in DTI: Watching the Clock is that if there's an entanglement between two timelines -- if one is created due to intervention from another, but circumstances allow the timelines to coexist rather than collapsing together -- then that partial entanglement will sort of contaminate the altered timeline with aspects of the quantum phase state of the original, and that will affect quantum probabilities so that events in the altered timeline still happen similarly to those in the original. In my mind, this also explains why the Mirror Universe hews so close to the Prime timeline even after centuries apart; I figure the arrival of the Defiant in the MU's 2150s created an entanglement between the timelines and created an influence that caused similar events to occur, the same people to be born and end up in the same places, etc., at least up to a point.

Anyway, it's not that huge a coincidence that Spock Prime and young Kirk were on the same part of Delta Vega at the same time. Presumably they were both placed there so they'd be in proximity to the Starfleet station where Scott was: Nero put Spock Prime near enough to it that he could be rescued and have to live with the fate of Vulcan, and Spock sent Kirk's escape pod there so that he could be retrieved and protected until he could be brought back to Earth for court-martial. If the cave was the only shelter in the area, it's not so unlikely that they both would've ended up there.

In fairness to the writers I can't have my cake and eat it. If every probability occurs somewhere in the multiverse then there must be (at least) one where Spock and Kirk meet in a cave. We just happen to be viewing the universe where that very improbable event occurred.

^Again, I already addressed that specific point. It's logical that they both would've been deposited near the Starfleet base, and it's logical that they both would've sought shelter in the area. If that cave was the only shelter, it's not that unlikely that they would've both found it. Yes, it is a bit of a coincidence that Kirk happened to head in that direction from the escape pod, but it's a lot less of a coincidence than if they'd been placed on the planet randomly. And for all we know, he'd been following a spiral path outward from his landing site, so he would've found the cave eventually.

Lol - that's why I don't view the griping negatively. Turn that negative into a positive!

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Sure, but it can be very destructive. Fans wonder aloud why people think that avid fans are embarrassing, and the fans manage to reinforce the stereotypes while they are in loud denial.

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There's many different kinds of fans. Some want to see Trek tell better, more compelling and thought provoking stories. Some, swallow up anything with a Star Trek logo on it regardless of quality. Some, just tune in for the space battles. If anything, the fans that get the most negative press are those that dress in costume simply because they're the most visible. Don't limp everyone into one group. Sure;y, the disagreements that happen on here are proof that there is no one kind of fan.

Did Spock actually expect Kirk to set out for the outpost? He had no weapon, no food or survival equipment. Even the pod itself told him to stay put.

And not only did Kirk & Old Spock have to end up in the same general area as the outpost, Spock had to be on a line between the outpost and where Kirk landed. Imagine two people trying to get to the Empire State Building. Start one in Queen and the other in New Jersey. How likely are they to cross paths before they get to their destination?

Unfortunately, this version of Star Trek had it's start as a summer, popcorn movie. Good for the box office. Not so good for serious storytelling.

It was fun. It just doesn't hold up very well to scrutiny. We had a major change for Spock. You can hardly get more life changing than what he went through. Kirk, on the other hand, is pretty much the same person at the end as he is at the beginning. The rest of the crew, as is usual for Trek movies, were pretty much window dressing. They hit their character marks but other than Uhura, we really didn't learn too mcuh about. And even Uhura's stroy was simply as a side story to Spock.

There was no leadership shown by Kirk. No reason for why his prime crew was so loyal to him. Why are these people follwoing him other than they get to be on the coolest ship and, in Spock's case, because his older self told him to. Spock-Prime told Kirk about their friendship and yet, at the end, we didn't see Kirk ask Spock to join him. It was all Spock's choice. Everyone seemed to need Kirk. Kirk didn't seem to need anyone.

Lol - that's why I don't view the griping negatively. Turn that negative into a positive!

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Sure, but it can be very destructive. Fans wonder aloud why people think that avid fans are embarrassing, and the fans manage to reinforce the stereotypes while they are in loud denial.

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And not only did Kirk & Old Spock have to end up in the same general area as the outpost, Spock had to be on a line between the outpost and where Kirk landed. Imagine two people trying to get to the Empire State Building. Start one in Queen and the other in New Jersey. How likely are they to cross paths before they get to their destination?

There was no leadership shown by Kirk. No reason for why his prime crew was so loyal to him. Why are these people follwoing him other than they get to be on the coolest ship and, in Spock's case, because his older self told him to. Spock-Prime told Kirk about their friendship and yet, at the end, we didn't see Kirk ask Spock to join him. It was all Spock's choice. Everyone seemed to need Kirk. Kirk didn't seem to need anyone.

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Thanks, I was going to make the point about needing to be in the same line to meet. And Kirk was deposited roughly a day's walk from the base with minimal equipment (albeit we don't know how long a day is on this planet and he most likely had survival equipment in his pod that he left behind) so any kind of deviation from a direct line to the base could have added a big time factor to his journey.

There were indeed fudged leadership issues because they needed Kirk to be in a position of leadership and they'd decided to make young Spock a senior officer, despite his young age (by removing Pike's first officer). They wanted it to be the Kirk and Spock show as they were the most popular TOS characters and this was a movie to reintroduce us to them. However, I think Serenity shows you can have principle characters who can work really well in a fleshed out ensemble. I would have preferred it if more crew had beamed across to take down Nero. There were several occasions where the mission almost failed due to lack of back-up.

I hope that they get to grips with this issue and don't do illogically under-resourced landing parties in the sequel.

Thanks, I was going to make the point about needing to be in the same line to meet. And Kirk was deposited roughly a day's walk from the base with minimal equipment (albeit we don't know how long a day is on this planet and he most likely had survival equipment in his pod that he left behind) so any kind of deviation from a direct line to the base could have added a big time factor to his journey.

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Except that Kirk wasn't supposed to leave the escape pod at all; he did so against the explicit advice of the pod's computer. Presumably the intention was that the outpost staff (i.e. Scott & Keenser) would come and get him.

Thanks, I was going to make the point about needing to be in the same line to meet. And Kirk was deposited roughly a day's walk from the base with minimal equipment (albeit we don't know how long a day is on this planet and he most likely had survival equipment in his pod that he left behind) so any kind of deviation from a direct line to the base could have added a big time factor to his journey.

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Except that Kirk wasn't supposed to leave the escape pod at all; he did so against the explicit advice of the pod's computer. Presumably the intention was that the outpost staff (i.e. Scott & Keenser) would come and get him.

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Yeah, that's true - it's one of the plot holes. It would make more sense if the expectation was for the base to transport Kirk off the lifepod after detecting his emergency signal. It must have taken Kirk best part of a day to reach the outpost and yet when they arrive, Scotty thinks they're from a supply ship. It seems the outpost has no long range sensors (didn't notice Nero in their system, Spock's transporter signal, Enterprise passing through, or Kirk's escape pod landing), no localised communications (unaware of life pod's signal even after a day on the planet) and no long range communications (nobody mentions any attempt to warn Earth or anybody else nearby) and yet they can detect the Enterprise at warp and scan with sufficient accuracy to beam someone over a light year using the shuttle.

If Scotty is such a great engineer and has no sensors or communications other than in his shuttle, why hasn't he set up his equipment to monitor the shuttle's systems? I mean we have wi-fi now...

Of course, it's possible Scotty simply hadn't gotten around to checking his messages yet. He was asleep in his lab when they found him, and by the looks of the place, he spent his time tinkering with and dismantling things rather than listening in on galactic chatter.

Of course, it's possible Scotty simply hadn't gotten around to checking his messages yet. He was asleep in his lab when they found him, and by the looks of the place, he spent his time tinkering with and dismantling things rather than listening in on galactic chatter.

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But it's not galactic chatter - it's an emergency distress beacon. It stretches credibility further when you consider how long Kirk's been on the planet when he arrives at the outpost.

This is something that does chime in with the comics too. NuScotty is a fantastic engineer but he's a terrible, terrible officer. Star Trek always seems to think your best engineer should be in charge even though chief engineers spend a large chunk of their time supervising underlings and dealing with admin. Your talented engineers can be your petty officers and specialist technicians. Officers need to know how to follow protocols, including quarantine and emergency protocols. In the same way that I thought Kirk should have been promoted to work under a more experienced captain before taking command of a ship, all the evidence I've seen so far is that somebody else should be in charge of engineering! Scotty may be a genius but he's also a dumb a**.

But it's not galactic chatter - it's an emergency distress beacon. It stretches credibility further when you consider how long Kirk's been on the planet when he arrives at the outpost.

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A planetwide evacuation signal. And Scotty was on *another* planet. And asleep.

And how long was Kirk there for? A matter of hours. 6? 8?

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Sorry, I meant the distress signal from the life pod. Although it is arguable that he should have picked up the Vulcan distress call too, I'd let that one slide, since he would not think there would be much that he can do and seismic activity may not register as a major emergency from his perspective.

I think it would take maybe 8 hours to cross rough terrain in deep snow to reach the outpost (possibly a longer if you compare mileage with sleds for arctic expeditions) but he and Spock also seem to spend the night in the cave so it's probably much longer. And lets not forget, if you use a lifepod you're probably in trouble. Scotty was essentially the ambulance for Kirk's 911 call - 8 hours is plenty of time for a wounded man to bleed to death.

I think it would take maybe 8 hours to cross rough terrain in deep snow to reach the outpost (possibly a longer if you compare mileage with sleds for arctic expeditions)

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Considering Nero had just arrived at Earth when the Enterprise had just caught up to the Narada after flying towards the laurentian system and then turning back to earth after Kirk got back on board they didn't seem to be on Delta Vega long.

but he and Spock also seem to spend the night in the cave so it's probably much longer.

I think it would take maybe 8 hours to cross rough terrain in deep snow to reach the outpost (possibly a longer if you compare mileage with sleds for arctic expeditions)

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Considering Nero had just arrived at Earth when the Enterprise had just caught up to the Narada after flying towards the laurentian system and then turning back to earth after Kirk got back on board they didn't seem to be on Delta Vega long.

but he and Spock also seem to spend the night in the cave so it's probably much longer.

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Considering the ticking clock I doubt that.

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Yeah the timings are a bit vague. We don't know how long Kirk was unconscious, we know the distance to the base but not exactly how long it would take someone to walk (although apparently walking long distances in heavy snow takes a lot longer than you think), and while it's clear that Kirk and Spock chat for quite some time, we don't know how long, and we don't know how cold the planet get when the sun goes down or when the sun goes down.

Even assuming the minimum timings it must be at least 6 hours during daylight. Scotty should have responded long before.

The time issue regarding Nero and the Enterprise arriving at Earth is another timeline that is a bit fudged up. The Enterprise is travelling away from the Earth for several (say 6+) hours at less than warp 4 but Nero's 24th century ship is heading straight to Earth. Why would Nero travel at such a slow speed? He want's the security pre-fix codes from Pike, which implies he has no cloaking device (it isn't clear why he was able to blast Vulcan to smithereens without security codes but he might have taken Vulcan prisoners, later blown up by Kirk to get this information). However, since Pike has been taken prisoner, surely Starfleet would change its codes because presumably somebody (Spock or Scotty or Keenser?) would have thought to warn Starfleet Command of Pike's capture? Since every shuttle has a long distance communications system, it becomes hard to see in what way travelling slowly to Earth would help Nero. alternatively, assuming that every shuttles communications are also down, a trip to the nearest communications array would be the priority.